Aquatic Entering Fashion

Behold one of Anthropologie's Late Spring/Summer Looks. The outfit category is "aquatic."
& Of course the theme behind Alexander McQueen's (RIP) Spring '10 Collection was Waterworld. Basically. See?

fish eye burroughs mary

"There was something boneless about her, like a deep sea creature. Her eyes were cold fish eyes that looked at you through a viscous medium she carried about with her. I could see those eyes in a shapeless, protoplasmic mass undulating over the dark sea floor."

JUNKY

I CALLED IT (mgmt hopping on the wave)

Above is a screen-grab from MGMT's website. If this is not proof of the complete permeation of modern music with beach and aquatic aesthetics, I don't know what is. In starting my now defunct show Thalassique I swore to everyone that I was on to something that music journalists would refer to in retrospect as an aquatic, or if I may leave my mark in any way, a thalassic sonic movement.

According to a recent interview with SPIN.com, a lot of MGMT's forthcoming album was inspired by Andrew Vanwyngarden recently learning how to surf, and that the activity is a resounding "thread throughout the record." These 2 psychedelic, art-spective kids could have lain their sights on anything for their latest compositions' thematic direction. But they chose this one. It's really general, I know, (water, the sun, the sand) and so it's easy to try to pigeonhole people into relying on it aesthetically or having something in common with other musicians who do, but the fact is that this aesthetic is something that exists independently in the world and is not born in anyone's mind. It is something that brushes people by and infects them, or leaves them a little damp, salty, tanned. Curiouser and curiouser people start to come together and make the same kinds of things.

That Vampire Weekend album? Everyone was saying they'd gone from Ivy-League Africa to California, but the addition of bells etc and cooler melodies definitely didn't produce a uniquely California sound--it was more tropical than dry and easy-going. But everyone jumped to call it California because 1) there is a song with the state in the title and 2) that's just what you think of when you hear something that sounds like a warm-climate vacation and you're stuck in a Northern Hemisphere winter. Though 'beach' is synonymous with California for many, whether you want to call Contra 'Californian' or 'tropical' still proves it is riding on this same wave, and like everything 'aquatic' out there, is a product of [the influence of] the independently existing aesthetic that paradoxically is a product of the collective efforts of many, who autonomously dreamed up its features.

I'm just pointing this out because it is something that first rolled in on tape decks and tiny shows on coastal capitals in this country and now it's coloring the work of the most propitious indie rock heavy-weights that have already got their breaks in national music publications.

So it's probably a good idea that I don't do this show anymore, because wnyu is no place for mgmt or vampire weekend.

BACK BETWEEN SOUND

hear ye hear ye

i am hosting the sound between until further notice. same place, new time:

SATURDAY 2-4PM


all the same sort of stuff i like, but all new

I have been on winter break and have not been in town during my time slot to host. Will be back soon, classes start this week.

DO YOU EXIST?

Happy Holidays, all. There was no Thalassique last week; I can explain. See, sometime Sunday afternoon I went to the library to write papers, and some time Wednesday afternoon I left. But on that account, I have a question for you:

Does anyone listen to my show?

I only ask because, well, I really don't know. Occasionally I hear from people but there is no way for me to track listenership on the internet. The other reason I ask is that I will probably be switching to the Sound Between next semester, which I used to host until this September. I invite you to follow me over to my new 2 PM slot, on whichever day that ends up being, but I may try to keep doing Thalassique if people are listening. They all say net radio has no future. But does this show?

If you have ever listened to Thalassique, send an email to pier@wnyu.org or stick something in the comments section.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

WUT U BEEN MISSIN

I have a paper due tomorrow on love triangles in 19th Century Russian literature as related to the tragedy Andromache, but I would like to let you know that if you did not tune into Thalassique this evening, you missed:

-a Suzie Q reference
-storm sound effects played over (under?) all 19 minutes and 35 seconds of "The Diamond Sea"
-several 7+ minute jamz
-an encore of a song from the Beach Fossils set
-the sacrifice of an infant
-7" version of "Barbarism Begins at Home" - - because spitting in the face of people who don't want to be cool begins at home with spitting in the faces of infants.

AND NOW BACK TO ... STARTING TO WRITE MY PAPER
...WHICH I HAVE BEEN PLANNING
IT'S NOT LIKE I'M PROCRASTINATING OR STARTING IT AT THE LAST MINUTE
OKAY?
thalassique sundays 6-8 pm on wnyu.org

OCEANA

SAVE THE SHARKS!

PLAYLIST 12/6/09

Highlights this week: The Chengdu Children's Palace Choir (whose music is released courtesy of, presumably, the Chinese Government) out-chanted the likes of Karen O and theKkids with their "Boating Song" in shrill, mellifluous refrains that even native Mandarin-speaking confidants of mine couldn't translate for me. ("It's too high pitched to understand them!"); & we went on Girl (/girl-led) Band Overload: Pearl Harbor, Brilliant Colors, Weed Hounds, Pens, X-Ray Spex, Blondie (believe it!), Camera Obscura and Frankie Rose. Phew! Well, before I rattle off the whole playlist...

PLAYLIST 12/06/09

6:02 PM	Surfer Blood "Floating Vibes" Astro Coast (Kanine) CD
6:06 PM	Dash Jacket "San Pedro" High Spirits (Self-Relased) CD
6:10 PM	Light Rays "Surf Song" Demo (Self-Released) CD
6:21 PM	The Present "Love Melody" World I See (Loaf) CD
6:21 PM	Ganglians "VooDoo" Monster Head Room (Woodsist) CD
6:24 PM	Dion and the Belmonts "A Teenager In Love" The Very Best of Dion and the Belmonts (EMI) CD
6:28 PM	Wild Beasts "All The King's Men" Two Dancers (Domino) CD
6:40 PM	Pearl Harbour "California Shakedown" Wish We Were Here CD
6:42 PM	Lilys "Claire Hates Me" In The Presence of Nothing (Slumberland/SpinART) CD 1992 [N]
6:45 PM	Brilliant Colors "You Say What You Want" Introducing (Slumberland) CD [N]
6:49 PM	Weed Hounds "Beach Bummed" Demo (Crooked Direction) CD
7:04 PM	Chengdu Childrens Palace Choir "Boating Song" Strawberry Pie: Chinese and Foreign Childrens Song (China Recording Corporation) CD
7:05 PM	Soft Tags "Secret Shoppers pt. 2" Seafoam Green (Self) CD
7:10 PM	Woods "Echo Lake" Songs of Shame (Woodsist/Shrimper) CD
7:11 PM	Neon Indian "Mind, Drips" Psychic Chasms (Lefse) CD [N]
7:21 PM	Pens "High in the Cinema" hey friend! what you doing (De Stijl) CD
7:23 PM	X-ray Spex "Let's Submerge" The Anthology (Sanctuary) CD
7:25 PM	Xu Xu Fang "Where Is Everybody?" Seven Days Now (Self-Released) CD
7:35 PM	La Shark "Bones" CD
7:43 PM	Reading Rainbow "we are too young" mystical participation CD 2009 [N]
7:46 PM	Surf City "Dickshakers Union" Surf City EP (Morr Music) CD
7:51 PM	Camera Obscura "Baby Don't Go" Live on Fair Game with Faith Sale (PRI) CD
7:57 PM	Frankie Rose "Thee Only One" Thee Only One (Slumberland) CD 2009 [N]

LITERARY ADDENDUM
A partial fable on sea urchins and anemones that would have been more developed had WNYU newscaster Eric Anderson not distracted me with tales of his own tribulations between mic breaks. Curse you, short-man!

TUNE IN, SUNDAYS 6-8 PM ON WNYU.ORG

THE SEA ANEMONE: "Lonely, Lonely that is me"

Yes, as evident in this 'Anemone Bed," they can touch each other, but like the sea urchin, they can touch little else (save Little Nemo's) without risking total destruction. (Total Destruction!!)

Take a closer look. These tentacles contain minuscule venomous stingers that stun and poison innocent passers-by, each misconstrued as a vicious threat to the anemone's well being and general happiness. Observe the weapons' stealthy flexibility and texture:


Beautiful, yes, but always looming, ever carnivorous, ever ready to attack.

Obviously there is no other animal photographed with these wily cnidarians ('cept that damn clown fish, I know, I know), because it would just be too gruesome. Such is the melancholic, malicious isolation of this emotionally-charged underwater creature.

BEWARE THE ANEMONE LEST YE BE CLOWNES

NEW FAVORITE BAND: GRASS WIDOW

I've been saying this a lot lately, mainly to myself, but nonetheless it bears repeating: Grass Widow are AWESOME. I meant to detail their greatness on here after I saw them open for Vivian Girls earlier this fall but I have been enslaved to school and various other institutions that own me, but it's not too late!!!


Why should you like them?

Technical Prowess
There's a lot of criticism of lo-fi music today, that the reverb pedal just glosses over a lack of skill, lazy voices/songwriting and no knack for melody outside the simple, upbeat and poppy. Likewise, when there's a girl in the band, or an all-girl band, people start commenting on how they look--Amelia Braekke-Dyer of UK trio Pens has complained of "when people refer to us as, 'Oh people just like them because they’re cute and they’re girls and they’re pretty.' But we’re still so under fire for not being pretty enough and not being cute enough," and Dum Dum Girls sparked a debate on Brooklyn Vegan for wearing cute dresses and tights to a CMJ gig. People get pissed that bands receive attention for looking good rather than playing well or wrongfully accuse musicians who are attractive or put-together of being talentless, and maybe this is a valid debate for some reverb-heavy bands or stylized pop stars, but this should be no question with Grass Widow.
All 3 of these girls can sing and play as the syncopated harmonies on "Celebrate the Mundane" alone can testify. They carry the same doo-wop/girl group nostalgia as other bands mentioned, but with something decidedly more Sleater-Kinney in how the instruments and vocals lock together. (That is my actual favorite band btw*). The hooks are much less stoic than their contemporaries but their choruses are still fit to hypnotize. Lo-fi? yes. Dizzying soprano vocals? Thank You Please. Fun-inspired riffs? I can dance to this. Check out their LP out on Make A Mess.

They're funny, and culturally informed:
At this show, Katy of the VGirlz was wearing the same dress I had just bought and almost wore that very night. When I told Grass Widow's guitarist, she was quick to pick up on the Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston drama that could have ensued had the redheaded bassist and I in fact showed up to an event in the same garment, recalling how Whitney growled, "TRY IT ON MEH!" (Except I am not as important as Kickball Katy, Mariah or Whitney so I'm sure no one would have cared).

All 3 of them can fit on 1 horse:
If you ever need to get out of town and you only have a limited supply of horses--not a problem. Observe:
http://myspace.com/grasswidowmusic
(LISTEN to all 6 songs currently streaming).


*bias

OOPS NO SHOW- TURKEY FISH

That there, is a Turkey Fish. No Thalassique last week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. I hope you understand and did not drown in your despair. I know we don't all have as many fins as Turkey Fish to propel us through such treacherous tides as those. Some of us can't even swim.

But I have a GREAT show for y'all coming up this weekend. At the end of your weekend.

TUNE IN SUNDAYS 6-8 PM ON WNYU.ORG

JUST IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT KOOSH BALLS ARE

I BEEN SEARCHIN' 4 URCHINS

They look sort of like koosh balls, cross-bred somewhere down the line with sea anemones. Why did Ariel's father disapprove of them so much?? Take a look for yourself:

SEA URCHINS

SEA URCHIN FACTS
King Triton was right in his contempt for Ariel's little street-rat friend Urchin, en fait. Sea Urchins are quite dangerous. These spindly creatures are no koosh balls--they have spikes that can get stuck in your flesh if you step on or threaten them. Not so nice. But on the other hand, it can't be so nice for the sea urchin either, never being able to get close to anyone out of fear of stabbing them. What a melancholy existence these rainbow clad suckers lead on the bottoms of ships and the ocean floor. (Or is it just barnacles that stick onto ships?)

Strangely enough, people eat them. Check out this 'sea urchin sushi boat' on the right. Thus, when a sea urchin injures you, there are more than adequate ways to get revenge. Fish them up with a net and then stab them yourselves with large cutlery instruments, then boil, saute, or roll them raw.

The prickliest members of the echindoderm phylum, sea urchins tend to grow up to 2 to 4 inches in diameter and have teeth, which they can use to bite holes in rocks when they need to places to hide, only one example of the destructive power they posess.

WET DOG, "LOWER LEG" VIDEO

Check out the new video for the first single from Wetdog's forthcoming album, Frauhaus! (Captured Tracks, 11/30). "Lower Leg" was filmed/directed by the band, and edited by Margarita Louca, featuring some dizzying underwater shots of girls goofing off in a swimming pool.



Why should you care? Their layered British yelping, loud bass/angular guitar and syncopated rhythms deliver what the new Slits album couldn't. And in Thalassique-land we always like to dive into pools and walk on our hands and stuff. Except I hate swimming because I wear contact lenses. Actually, watching the swimming pool water kind of makes me thirsty. Drink enough water, people. Punk rock can dehydrate you.

www.myspace.com/wetdogthebest

PLAYLIST 11/8/09

Ahoy there. Here is the playlist from last Sunday:

6:08 PM	The Shop Assistants "It's Up to You" All Day Long CD
6:09 PM	Karen O and the Kids "Sailing Home" Where the Wild Things Are CD
6:09 PM	Abe Vigoda "The Garden" Skeleton (Post Present Medium) CD
6:10 PM	Best Coast "Something in the Way" Art Fag 7" (Art Fag) CD
6:18 PM	Grass Widow "Celebrate the Mundane" Demo (Make a Mess) CD
6:19 PM	The Clean "Fish" Great Sounds Great, Good Sounds Good, So-So Sounds So-So, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten!! (Flying Nun) CD 1982
6:24 PM	Almighty Defenders "Jihad Blues" Almighty Defenders (Vice) CD
6:26 PM	The Beets "The Devil" Spit In The Face Of People Who Don't Want To Be Cool (Captured Tracks) CD
6:27 PM	Spectrals "Don't Mind" Cassette CD
6:30 PM	Christmas Island "Black Cloud" Blackout Summer (Midheaven) CD [N]
6:40 PM	Beach House "Turtle Island" Devotion (Carpark) CD
6:41 PM	Vivian Girls "I'm Not Asleep" Everything Goes Wrong (In The Red) CD
6:43 PM	Sleater Kinney "Heart Attack" Call the Doctor (Chainsaw) CD 1996
6:51 PM	Girls At Dawn "Every Night" 7" (HoZac) CD
6:54 PM	Wild Nothing "Summer Holiday" 7" (Captured Tracks) CD
6:56 PM	Sleep Whale "Roof Sailing" Houseboat (Western Vinyl) CD [N]
7:00 PM	Julie Ruin "Tania" Julie Ruin (Kill Rock Stars) CD
7:10 PM	German Measles "Eternity" Wild EP (Captured Tracks) CD [N]
7:11 PM	Orange Juice "Falling And Laughing" The Glasgow School (Domino Recordings Co.) CD 2005
7:16 PM	Meth Teeth "A Thousand Regrets" Everything Went Wrong (Woodsist) CD 2009 [N]
7:20 PM	The Bodines "Decide" Decide (Single) (Play Hard Records) CD 1989
7:29 PM	The Bitters "East" East 7" (Captured Tracks) CD
7:35 PM	Black Water "Abyss" MP3
7:36 PM	The Gun Club "Ghost on the Highway" Fire of Love (Slash) CD
7:37 PM	Little Claw "Slow Sticky Tornado" Human Taste CD
7:50 PM	Little Teeth "Oh Drag" Child Bearing Man CD
7:53 PM	Jens Lekman "It Was A Strange Time In My Life" Night Fall Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian) CD

Threw in some (post) riot grrl stuff that flowed with the lo-fi tide (Julie Ruin and gods of rock Sleater-Kinney), and some oldies like the Gun Club, the Bodines and Orange Juice. And as corporate as WTWTA is, I couldn't have a show without Karen O cooing every once in a while, particularly in a song that's supposed to guide images of a drifting boat.

ADDENDA
The ever well-dressed Eric Anderson dropped in to read some news about Mayor Bloomberg and some pipe exploding. And I re-played the excerpt from "The Bronze Horseman" over Black Water because I like it just that much.

TUNE IN SUNDAYS 6-8 PM ON WNYU.ORG

LISTEN TO CAMPFIRES ON THALASSIQUE

What do you know, last week's show hit the archives like 5 minutes ago. It's in 2 parts. Links here:

PART ONE: http://wnyu.org/2009-11-01_Thalassique
PART TWO: http://wnyu.org/2009-11-01pt2_Thalassique


Image courtesy of Kim Cronin's Flickr stream; it's the remains of the Annie M. Peterson Schooner shipwrecked on the shores of Lake Superior, like those Jeff Walls/Campfires described to me (and you, the listener) last Sunday. Mr. Walls also brandished his ipod to share with the show an Alan Lomax recording of Italian longshoremen singing a capella in strange, merry harmonies, and of course 7 tracks from his burgeoning repertoire of releases. (It wasn't all seafaring nostalgia). Some of the tracks were recorded in a summer vacation hot spot Lake Park with sound samples of Lake Michigan. Listen to hear how Michigan and lo-fi go together like sand and salt and how passive listening (like listening to books on tape) can be a beautiful thing.


About 4/5 of the way through Part 1 is "Underground, in a Cave, in a Shallow Bed of Freezing Water," a collaboration between Campfires and Philadelphia-based writer Ben Segal, who wrote a book in the form of crossword puzzles titled 78 Stories: A Crossword Novella. Full text of Ben Segal's story of the same title "Underground, in a Cave, in a Shallow Bed of Water" can be found here; Jeff reads the narrative about a giant salamander that offers a small town the choice of a certain gruesome euthanasia over his own super fuzzy layers of guitar in blatant homage to the Velvet Underground's "The Gift."

Big thanks to Jeff for coming on the show! Enjoy the streaming mp3s.


PLAYLIST 11/01/09

6:06 PM	Crystal Stilts "The City in the Sea" Alight of Night (Slumberland) CD 2008
6:08 PM	Yo La Tengo "Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (Matador Records) CD
6:24 PM	Thee Oh Sees "Where the People do Drugs" In the Shadow of the Giant CD
6:25 PM	Times New Viking "No Time, No Hope" Born Again Revisited (Matador) CD [N]
6:27 PM	The Hunches "Not Invited" Exit Dreams (In The Red) CD
6:40 PM	Campfires "Stormy Late Fall" Stormy Late Fall 7" (Mexican Summer) CD {coming soon}
6:42 PM	Campfires "Easy Orchard" - (Self-Released) CD {coming out maybe on the Burning Rivers Tape from Leftist Nautical Antiques}
6:43 PM	Campfires "Chicora" - (Self-Relased) CD {Brand new song, maybe out on As Above, So Below purdy soon}
6:57 PM	Campfires "Air Raid" - (Self-Relased) CD
6:59 PM	Campfires "Slip-Shod Paradise" - (Self-Released) CD {probably on the Leftist Nautical Antiques tape}
7:01 PM	Campfires "Royal Orange" Upcoming Split with Benoit Pioulard! (FM Dust) CD
7:12 PM	Campfires and Ben Segal "Underground in a Cave" - (Self-Relased) CD
7:28 PM	Superchunk "Learned To Surf" Leaves In The Gutter EP (Merge Records) CD
7:30 PM	Les Sequelles "Everything's Just Fine Baby" CD
7:31 PM	Soft Tags "Deathstar is Ascendent" Seafoam Green (Self) CD [N]
7:33 PM	Reigning Sound "Stick Up For Me" Love and Curses (In The Red) CD [N]
7:44 PM	The Breeders "Cro-Aloha" Cannonball EP (Elektra) CD
7:47 PM	Genoese Longshoremen "La Partenza" Alan Lomax Collection Sampler CD
7:50 PM	The King Khan & BBQ Show "Third Ave" Invisible Girl (In The Red) CD [N]
7:52 PM	The Mantles "Bad DEsign" Bad Design 7" CD
8:05 PM	Surf City "Autumn" Surf City EP (Morr Music) CD

http://myspace.com/campfiresmusic
http://campfiresmusic.com

Shake it like a salt shaker,
Pier

http://cakeheadlovesevil.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/nomura-jellyfish/

So it's been a while and I've been a little slack on the marine poetry and such. BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE FINER MARINE POETRY THAN THESE GIANT JELLYFISH?



Or these jelly fish captured in motion on film. Wow:




Last week's show with Campfires should be in the archives soon. Hold tight and if you're in Japan don't go swimming in the bay because I hear big ass jellyfish tend to ride in there on the currents.

THIS SUNDAY: CAMPFIRES

[pic courtesy of Campfires' Myspace]

As I mentioned before, Chicago-based musician Campfires will stop by the station this Sunday, November 1, 2009 to play some of his recently released tapes and MP3s on THALASSIQUE. He has a 7-Inch coming out on Mexican Summer and tapes expected on Leftist Nautical Antiques and As Above, So Below Tapes. It will be awesome to have some of Campfires' super-fuzzy bedroom tapes in the WNYU library--but it will be even nicer to hear Jeff Walls (Campfires) and I talk about them, and the world of water as a muse, AND to hear a special new track recorded by Jeff for the show, setting a short story by his friend Ben from Philadelphia to his jangly and distorted riffs in the vein of the Velvet Underground's "The Gift."

So make sure you tune in this Sunday, November 1 for the goods. I'm sorry if you tuned in last week and heard only dead air. That was inexpressibly retarded and won't happen....ever....again.

BEACH FOSSILS SET ARCHIVED ON WNYU.ORG

http://wnyu.org/2009-10-25_Thalassique